Give an hour...

Anne Cooper blogged recently for the Nursing Times - Playing "catch up" with technology in nursing care. In her blog she mentions some overseas projects that she has seen where nurses have embraced technology and used it for their patients advantage, but British nurses seem to be a little slower on the uptake.  Speaking on a personal level I agree with Anne that British nurses are falling behind in the use of technology - and I have been thinking for a while how I can make a difference...


This morning I have been inspired greatly by the launch of the "Give an Hour" campaign.  This is a nationwide campaign to get people online and open their minds to the possibilities and advantages that cyberspace offers.  The heart of the campaign is that with the clocks going back on Sunday 30th October we all gain an extra hour - so why not give it away? This is a brilliant concept and one which I want to embrace.



I am proposing that those of us who know about technology in nursing "Give an Hour" of our time to impart information on how technology can help our profession to other nurses. Of course I will happily to give an hour of my time to share information about using twitter for nursing - so if anyone has a group of nurses I would love to meet them and share with them how twitter can help them to develop as nurses. Nurses are great at learning new things,but they have to see the advantage both professionally and personally.   To get nurses embracing technology we merely need to present good role models to them so that they can learn from these people and see the advantages of technology first hand.  I know that amoungst my twitter followers there are some truly inspiring nursing role models and it is to them I say pass your knowledge and passion on by giving an hour.

Please leave me a tweet or a comment on what you are going to do - or if you wish to take me up on my offer to share my knowledge of twitter for nurses.

COMMUNITY...

Community is " a group of people sharing religion, race or profession"  is what my dictionary says ! This is a very short and succinct way of putting it and whilst it is accurate I believe that it is not the full story.  Personally I think that this does not do the concept of community justice at all.   Community to me means a group of like minded people sharing knowledge, experience. ideas and thoughts in order to support each other and develop and to progress the community as a whole.  For a while now I have been talking about nurse community and the sharing of ideas and knowledge - the way our profession used to back in the day when we all worked, ate, slept and existed together under one roof.  Today things are different and we all have increasingly busier lives and nurses are no longer just nurses but wives and husbands, mothers and fathers and so much more.

The reason I started to blog and to tweet was because I felt that in some way nursing needs to return to being a community and i very much see that social media can facilitate this around our busy lives.  I am truly passionate about social media bringing nurses together and want to share this with every nurse I meet.  I am very lucky that the lovely people at Newcross believe in this too and are helping me to do this by supporting and developing the nurse community initiative that is NurChat. http://www.nurchat.blogspot.com/  For those of you who don't know NurChat is a twitter chat for nurses to discuss and exchange professional ideas .. it is driven by the nursing community for the nursing community.  the first chat took place earlier this week, and it was a fabulous get together of a wide variety of nurses and I truly felt that our nurse community had been re born!

But a Nursing Times blog by Anne Cooper got me thinking ....

http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-specialisms/educators/do-you-use-social-media/5033488.article

 ...the blog was all about Annes journey in discovering social media, and I could very much see comparison between my own journey and Annes.  However it was the comments that followed the blog that set me alight - an anonymous person commented that  it's was a shame there weren't more examples in the blog of where nurses are using social media to improve their skills or work and suggested that maybe the Nursing Times just wanted to talk about the things that they do in social media.  There were then two subsequent comments by Pam Nelmes and Nadine Woogara that then gave examples of where social media is working well. Further down the comments it was great to see the author of the blog -Anne- comment and say follow me on twitter and follow my followers !!! How brilliant !!

And so ...I think that I had my very own "light bulb" moment - Social Media is just in it's very infancy for nurses and we all have our own agendas for community ... so are we truly sharing???  What we need more of is the "follow my followers" ...  in a community everyone has value and ideas and knowledge and this needs to be found before it can be shared .... so with that in mind here are the people in social media that give me alot of value, please follow them as I am sure they will do the same for you.  (in no particular order)


@PamNelmesFoH  - a truly inspirational follow, tweets lots of nursing info
@TheStrokeAssoc - lots of good stroke info
@nhssm - lots of info on social media within the NHS
@anniecoops - a wonderful blog writer and provides brilliant inspiration
@HCANurse_Mikey - amazing tweeter who is always finding fab stuff for nurses
@NurChat - a fortnightly twitter chat for nurses
@NursingTimes - lots of news, stories, blogs and forums
@DonnaCardilloRN - writes amazing, thought provoking blogs
@NewcrossHealth - starting to do some amazing stuff for nurses
@RCNPublishing - Share info for the nursing communities benefit really well
@SuzetteWoodward -brilliant stuff to do with patient safety
@shirleyayres- tweets some really interesting things about social media
@theRCN - important to follow to keep updated
@NMCnews - very important to follow

and some nurses who I have had great discussions with :


@MacMoomin
@N1ckWarren
@katieandersonHD
@politicalnurse
@nursemaiden
@vickiafc
@nothernlass73
@Safer_ICU
@eileenshepherd
@gallowcl
@FloNursingtales
@KevinHamUoP
@Hhaylo

Please feel free to share the people you gain value from too...

Please follow this link to see the full Nursing Times blog by Anne Cooper

http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-specialisms/educators/do-you-use-social-media/5033488.article

And if you want to know more about NurChat please follow this link

http://www.nurchat.blogspot.com/

Launching NurChat...

It seems such a long time since my last blog and so much has happened ...

Although I have not blogged I have been hard at work, striving to get the nurse community talking and developing a new project that aims to do this.  And now I am very proud to announce the launch of NurChat.

NurChat...

NurChat is a project that I have been working on with the lovely people at Newcross Healthcare.  NurChat is a fortnightly chat for nurses and the nursing community to discuss nursing issues, journal articles and nursing news. The chats can be accessed via searching #NurChat and will take place on every other Tuesday evening at 8pm and the date for the first chat is TUESDAY 9TH AUGUST - put it in your diary now!!

To get regular updates of the NurChat twitter chats and to find out more go to www.nurchat.blogspot.com and give NurChat a follow.

NurChat officially launched yesterday and since then I have been truly overwhelmed by all the support from the tweeting and healthcare community, it's great to see everyone coming together with a common goal in mind .... to talk!!  I would like to thank each and every one of you out there for the help and support ..and I am really looking forward to getting involved in some great discussions with you all.

See you there ...

So don't forget the first NurChat on TUESDAY 9TH AUGUST AT 8PM.  I am really excited about seeing you all there!

Getting more nurses talking ...

It has been truly amazing how #nurseuk has taken off and it is lovely to see that other nurses are using #nurseuk now. However sometimes in order to go forwards we have to take a step or two back ... A conversation that I had on twitter set me thinking that a lot of nurses may be missing out as they do not know how to use twitter effectively. Therefore I have decided to take a leap backwards and I have produced a nurses guide to tweeting.

Nurses guide to using twitter.

View more presentations from Teresa Chinn

This guide is intended to help nurses to get the best out of twitter so that they can continue to listen, ask and share effectively.

So what next ...

Share and send this guide to friends and colleagues allowing them to start using twitter to aid with their professional development. Our little nurse community is fab but the more it grows the more experience and knowledge we can share. Tweet, Facebook, email and text this link to other nurses ...

http://www.slideshare.net/AgencyNurse/nurses-guide-to-using-twitterppt-2 

This is a great and exciting concept that we can all benefit from. Keep sharing.

Keep going you are doing a fantatstic job...

Another week on and #NURSEUK is taking a fabulous turn .... nurses out there are really starting communicate and starting to support eachother, the comments below are a brief snapshot of this:

• "although it's all part of the job..sometimes a patient comes along & they really affect you" 
• "It never gets any easier dealing with the death of a patient who you become close to as a nurse. #RIP and god bless #nurseuk"
• "uniform all ironed, new shiny shoes, white fob watch. Getting excited about going back to nursing!"
• "any one recommend a good fob watch start work thursday need comfy shoes and fob watch!"
• "Interview today - NERVOUSSSS!! / don't panic, deep breaths, you will be fine #nurseuk"

It's brillaint to see a community building itself and supporting itself.  However, as with all communication, we need to remember that listening is vital.  Don't just talk about your needs and your day ... listen to what others are saying and respond.  The wonderful thing about Social \Media is that everyone is invited not just a select few, everyone has value and everyone is welcome.  Keep #NURSEUK open on your tweetdeck or hootsuite and start listening as well as talking ... and when you see a comment marked #NURSEUK feel free to add value.

Moving forward...

• Keep talking about #NURSEUK to friends and colleagues and anyone who doesn't know about it send them to http://www.slideshare.net/AgencyNurse
• Keep asking, sharing and LISTENING
• Keep going you are doing a fantastic job! 

I am so proud that we have a sharing community - lets invite everyone!

We're Just Getting Started

It's been a whole week since I posted my slide share on this blog about #nurseuk ... and I am truly amazed at how this concept is starting to develop.

#nurseuk has now been used by 12 people - now this may not sound alot but it's an amazing start and all within a week. Comments include :

• "There's many possibilities for nursing online; a vibrant social learning community for starters.."
• "Interesting take on nursing from a social media perspective"
• "Is social media the way forward 4 nurse communities? #nurseuk Yes 4 bth among nurses & patients"
• "#nurseuk is really good happy to promote"
• "I believe it can be a positive progress for nurses if they target social media aptly"
• "Implementation is key in preventing language barriers #nurseuk"
• "SM allows communication across different fields of medicine for improved research, practice, & patient care"

So with my blog is fast approaching 700 views and my slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/AgencyNurse on 268 views, it is evident that #nurseuk is creating a stir !! But we need more ..... so far the majority of the conversation on #nurseuk is about nurses using social media, but the topics of conversation are endless. 

The next step...

• start talking about #nurseuk to your friends, tweet about it, fb about it, email about it, text about it SHOUT ABOUT IT!!!! 
• start to share things that you find interesting
• ask questions if you need to know something
• listen out and respond to others

We have, albeit very small, a community ... lets get it thriving !!

Rebuilding the nursing community via #NURSEUK

Please feel free to take a look at the slideshare deck that I hope explains how we, as nurses, can use social media to professionally develop and continue with PREP in our busy, often professionally isolated, lives.

I am working on nurse’s guide to social media, coming soon!

Please share and embed this slide deck.

Don’t forget to tag your nurses content #NURSEUK

Is anybody out there

View more presentations from Teresa Chinn

Is there anybody out there #nurseuk ...

Back in November 2010 I blogged and tweeted "is there anybody out there?" as I wanted to find like minded nurses with which to share information, knowledge and ideas. Since then I have been on a journey that has made me realise that yes there are nurses out there but we cannot see eachother.

Social media is moving forward at an immense speed - as nurses we need to use this new media in order to help us with juggling our busy professional and personal lives and our PREP requirements.  However we cannot use this if we are not able to see eachother!!

#nurse uk is a concept that I truly believe will over come this issue and it is simple ....

• If you have something interesting to say, or found something interesting, share it - blog, tweet, facebook, forums, youtube etc
• If you need an answer to a question or more knowledge about a subject then ask social media 
• Keep an eye out for others wanting knowledge and support and help them

AND...

So we can all see each other add the hashtag...

#nurseuk

#nurseuk is a tag that will allow us all to develop and grow a social media nursing community. We as nurses can make this happen !

The full journey and idea for #nurse uk can be explored further on my powerpoint slideshow on slideshare http://slidesha.re/joS2AI

Lets get our community thriving - #nurseuk

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